Where’s the minister?

By first accounts, the terrible rail tragedy near Pathankot on Tuesday was the result of obsolete signal systems. Once again it has taken loss of human life — almost forty — in a completely preventable train collision to expose the Indian Railways’ failure to upgrade basic infrastructure. The sad, and essential, point is this. Had proper anti-collision devices been in place, passengers on the Jammu Tawi Express and a Jalandhar-Pathankot passenger train would have reached their destinations unharmed. And Laloo Prasad Yadav would have not been distracted away from his more urgent itinerary to oversee preparations for a ‘Maha Ralla’, a gigantic show of political strength in Patna scheduled for December 23.

A distraction is really what it appeared to be for the railway minister. He rushed to the bruised site at Mukerian, thundered his resolve to bring the guilty to book, hurled punishment at two station masters, and was soon on his way to Patna. As in his politics, Laloo Prasad Yadav has cynically streamlined the rituals of ministerial responsibility. Fifteen years of rule in Bihar — directly and by proxy — have been constructed on a foundation of rhetoric and blame-calling. In Laloo Prasad Yadav’s bid for “social justice” slogans, are drained of any hint of action. Whether it be Bihar’s abysmal socio-economic indicators, or (as this newspaper highlighted) inaction to investigate caste wars, there is no attempt at procedural or institutional reform. There are only words. So it was at Mukerian on Tuesday. Laloo Prasad Yadav is right to insist that there must be accountability, that “appropriate action” be taken against those responsible. But accountability and appropriate action accrue from fidelity to reason and process — not from a hurried stock-taking, announcement of compensation and a reductionist review of possible causes. Not when the minister decides to break from legislative protocol the morning after and fails to turn up in Parliament to personally apprise fellow MPs of the situation.

Indian Railways is in need of sweeping reform. The debate shall continue whether corporatisation or part-privatisation is the rational solution to its backlog in track upgradation, safety intervention and staff redeployment. None of that, however, is possible when the railway minister so obviously views the Railways as a staging ground to make a political point to his constituents. That is why none of Laloo Prasad Yadav’s angry words elicits any confidence that in the misery at Mukerian any lessons have been learnt.